Paul's instinct was to pity this woman for the past that had been hers; his desire was to help her and protect her, to watch over her and fight her battles for her. It was what is called Love. But there is no word in any spoken language that covers so wide a field. Every day and all day we call many things love which are not love. The real thing is as rare as genius, but we usually fail to recognize its rarity. We misuse the word, for we fail to draw the necessary distinctions. We fail to recognize the plain and simple truth that many of us are not able to love--just as there are many who are not able to play the piano or to sing. We raise up our voices and make a sound, but it is not singing. We marry and we give in marriage, but it is not loving. Love is like a color--say, blue. There are a thousand shades of blue, and the outer shades are at last not blue at all, but green or purple. So in love there are a thousand shades, and very, very few of them are worthy of the name. That which Paul Howard Alexis felt at this time for Etta was merely the chivalrous instinct that teaches men their primary duty toward women--namely, to protect and respect them. But out of this instinct grows the better thing--Love. There are some women whose desire it is to be all things to all men instead of every thing to one. This was the stumbling-block in the way of Etta Bamborough. It was her instinct to please all at any price, and her obedience to such instinct was often unconscious. She hardly knew perhaps that she was trading upon a sense of chivalry rare in these days, but had she known she could not have traded with a keener comprehension of the commerce. "I should like to forget the past altogether," she said. "But it is hard for women to get rid of the past. It is rather terrible to feel that one will be associated all one's life with a person for whom no one had any respect. He was not honorable or--" She paused; for the intuition of some women is marvellous. A slight change of countenance had told her that charity, especially toward the dead, is a commendable quality. "The world," she went on rather hurriedly, "never makes allowances--does it? He was easily led, I suppose. And people said things of him that were not true. Did you ever hear of him in Russia--of the things they said of him?" She waited for the answer with suppressed eagerness--a good woman defending the memory of her dead husband--a fair lioness protecting her cub. "No; I never hear Russian gossip. I know no one in St. Petersburg, and few in Moscow." She gave a little sigh of relief. "Then perhaps poor Sydney's delinquencies have been forgotten," she said. "In six months every thing is forgotten now. He has only been dead six months, you know. He died in Russia."